Network adjustment is a mathematical approach that an advanced surveyor is usually performing when calculating coordinates. The inputs used to perform network adjustments are measurements, which may be taken by a surveying instrument. When these measurements agree with each other, then there are no errors. However, often these measurements disagree, creating tension in the network. The tension in the network is symptomatic of sources of error in the network, or in other words, bad measurements.
The task for the surveyor becomes to identify the bad measurements. When a bad measurement is identified, it is disabled. A network adjustment program is run again while computing the remaining measurements, to determine if the overall result is better. If it is not possible to disable a particular bad measurement, then the surveyor has to go out into the field and redo the measurement. If the surveyor is confident that he has eliminated all bad measurements, he will do a final network adjustment which will properly distribute the remaining measurement errors and estimate the final accuracies of the points and measurements.
In an effort to identify a specific bad measurement, manufacturers have devised software programs which help identify these sources of tension. For example, a bad measurement is characterized by certain statistical results, which are communicated via a text form in a report. Additionally, corresponding graphically displayed measurements are communicated through a user interface.
Presently, the current technology provides for a report to be opened in an external web browser. This report will indicate a failed measurement. Then, in order to view the failed measurement, a user interface containing a graphical representation of all the measurements is opened. All measurements tend to be visibly labeled with identifiers corresponding to the report's description. The failed measurement is found, and then disabled. From the user interface screen, a network adjustment report is run again. A user switches back to the report screen to determine if all measurements are now relatively error free. This round trip process continues until the user is satisfied with the overall network adjustment results, such as when all failed measurements are found.
However, this round trip process in adjusting network results to rid the report of all failed measurements takes much time and is cumbersome. Users have to find their way back into the user interface from the report, and identify measurements that belong to a particular text line in the report. In the process of trying to rid the program of all failed measurements, users have to negotiate between several windows, windows which do not have a user friendly connection with each other. Additionally, even if a user disables a measurement from the user interface window, the report describing the measurement shows this measurement as being enabled, leading to confusion, and making it difficult to track changes. Hence, a technology which provides a more user friendly method of negotiating between windows and performing network adjustments is needed.